PROGRAM NOTE
Fun-fare was composed as a commission from trumpet Professor Richard Illman, who teaches at Michigan State University. I was asked to write a short work in the form of a fanfare with Cuban flavor.
As I was learning about fanfare, I found an interesting definition of the word, given by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which reads as follow:
“A lot of talk or activity showing that people are excited about something.”
Such definition perfectly describes the Cuban people, and the spirit of “conga,” – the music that accompanies the Cuban carnival as it happens in Santiago de Cuba, a province in the east of the Island. Therefore, I decided to add the Cuban flavor to this work by recreating the sound of conga in the piece.
Finally, among the instruments used to play conga there is one known in Cuba as the “corneta china” (Chinese Cornet), which has a nasal sound and functions as a soloist against the rest of the instruments. It is in this way that the first trumpet has been used in this work: its sound seeks to mimic the corneta china’s sound as well as its soloist character.
–Ivette Herryman Rodriguez
Performers
MSU Trumpet Ensemble (2015)
Score: $7
Score and parts: $18